A FABULOUS LIFE

Rip It Up, Issue 249, 1 May 1998, Page 18

A FABUL OUS LIFE

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Garbage singer Shirley Manson isn't alone in holding lock ’n’ roll VIP status at Melbourne’s stately Hilton On The Park hotel this particular weekend. Over a 24 hour period, Steve Earle and the Dukes, Portishead's Geoff Barrow, and 'country legend Kenny Ropers will stroll through the lobby as they go about their

business. Earle owns the best beer belly, Barrow sports the best goatee, Rogers boasts the best plastic surgery, and Mans on, as she will announce later, has "the best of everything.” rx the third Sunday in April, Manson vll arrived in Melbourne at five in the morning, off a direct flight from Europe. She headed straight to the Hilton and slept “non-stop” for 23 hours, in preparation for five gruelling days of work promoting Garbage’s captivating second album, Version 2.0. While Manson is in Australia, she’ll conduct countless radio, television, and press interviews, endure several magazine photo shoots, and appear at at least two ‘meet-and-greet’ schmooze-fests. If there is time, Manson will be allowed to sit down for lunch.

When Garbage unveiled their self titled debut album in 1995, they were widely heralded as the band belonging to Butch Vig, the Madison, Wisconsin studio whizz who produced Nirvana’s Nevermind and the Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream. Four million copies of Garbage and five worldwide hit singles later, in the eyes of fans, Garbage is Shirley Manson. And with the worldwide release of Version 2.0 only weeks away, Manson is certainly in demand.

Garbage’s American label, Almo, and Mushroom (Europe, Australasia, Asia) are co-ordinating an extensive marketing schedule that they hope will have the western world living and breathing Garbage for the foreseeable future. Their un-secret weapon at the forefront of this global assault is the instantly charming Manson, who has had only one week at home in Edinburgh with her husband since Christmas. The rest of the time she has been travelling and talking the talk. After Manson leaves Australia, it’s on to Singapore to do it all over again. “I’m very extroverted and talk about anything to anybody, anytime, anywhere,” she says. Manson soaks up most of

her second day in Melbourne at a photographic studio in a quiet residential street in Fitzroy, five minutes drive from the inner city. With her first photo shoot complete, Manson settles down for her third interview of the day. Genuinely friendly, Manson has a hearty laugh, a Scottish accent you could melt in, and an unaffected disposition free of ego or pretension. And surprisingly, despite arguably being the most glamorous female pop icon of the last half of the twentieth century, she doesn’t much like having her photo taken.

“Coming into different countries where you have often no idea of the photographer’s work and have no control over the outcome, I find that sick inducing. You’re leaving it to them to represent your music a lot of the time, and if they get it wrong, you feel you’re being misrepresented, and that’s a horrible feeling.”

I’ve seen your schedule for the next few days, it’s pretty severe, there’s a lot of photography involved. “[Laughter] Severe is a good word.”

Do you have to psyche yourself up to face all this? “I can handle all the interviewing, it’s the photographs that I find difficult to stomach. Interviews are something I understand I have to do and we’re very lucky that people the world over want to speak to us about our record. But the photographing side of thing torments me, I hate it, it almost makes me feel physically sick, it makes me feel so bad about myself. I have absolutely no control over it.” Having been away from home doing promotion, basically since Christmas, what do you pine for most? “I miss getting up in the morning and being able to fix myself breakfast, or make myself a cup of coffee the way I like my coffee made, things like that. I live by the sea and every morning I can usually go downstairs and look at the ocean, and I can’t do that. Instead I look at the inside of a hotel room. But, you know what, I am a lucky devil, I love what I do, and I love being able to do it, and the down sides can be a little gruesome, but for the most part I have a fabulous life, so I don’t wanna sit here and moan about it because I’ve got it good. I have the best of everything I could want at the moment.”

Does your husband like your life? “[Laughter] He feels a little less better off than I am [laughter], and I think he’s horny as hell.” He’d be great friends with his right hand. “I’m sure [laughter], very great friends!”

Garbage spent 364 days making the new album, as a band have you gained any perspective on it since completion?

“No way, I haven’t listened to it since we finished it. I don’t think when you’ve made something, you’re ever the best person to ask about it — that’s why we like travelling and meeting lots of really smart journalists because they end up giving us a lot of great quotes [laughter], so we just think, ‘yeah, that’s what we’re trying to do, we’ll steal that quote from you.’ It’s very hard to be objective about your own work.” Are you nerv—

“Yes! [Laughter] Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! I’m more interested in the public reaction than critically, but it’s a

funny, weird concept. One side of me doesn’t give a fuck, and one side of me is aware that without success you have lost artistic freedom in some ways, ie. we could never have gone into the studio for a year without worrying about paying bills, without worrying about holding down a day job, if it hadn’t been for the fact we sold four million copies of our last record. And that afforded us this incredible luxury, and we love that so we don’t want to give that up. So, one side of you is anxious that your record isn’t gonna do as well as your last one, and it’s difficult to work on something that you love, and then feed it to the press and they butcher it, that’s always difficult to stomach, but at the end of the day, we know that we made a good record, and we know that ultimately it’s irrelevant what other people think, and irrelevant what people feel towards it because we did it ultimately for ourselves, it was a selfish pursuit. Even if we’re not lucky and the record doesn’t do well, I don’t think we’ll feel that we failed ourselves, I think we did as much as we possibly could, and the rest of it is in the lap of the gods.” You’ve gone streets ahead in being more personal with the lyrics on this record.

“Very much so. When I first joined the band I didn’t really know the men in the band very well and I felt uncomfortable around them. It took me a while to assert myself in the group dynamic and I felt duty bound to take on board their ideas lyrically and work around them. I would take lines from each of them and then augment them with my own words. This time round they trusted me implicitly and they left me to my own devices. I felt that on the last record the words were a little cold and distant and voyeuristic, and a little unsophisticated, I didn’t think they were as good as they could’ve been. On this record, even though they are way more personal and way more introspective, I think they’re more ambiguous, you can read things into them, they’re not literal, they’re not stories, they’re just touching on feelings and creating an atmosphere.”

Is It fair to say you’re more confident of your role within the band this time round?

“Definitely. On the last record I wrote a lot of the lyrics, but I felt subconsciously I had to please the guys in the band, I didn’t want to let them down. I chose much more to be true to myself this time round rather than trying to please anybody. I didn’t care this time because I knew that ultimately we would be comfortable because they trust me, and they share a sensibility with me. I’m way more upfront than they are, they’re horrified sometimes by the things I say in day to day life that I don’t think is a big deal, simple things like, ‘oh, sorry I’m a bitch I’m on my period,’ to somebody who is a stranger, they’d be

horrified. Things that they think are private, I don’t necessarily.”

You’re going to be talking about these lyrics for the next six months.

“I know and that’s okay, ’cause anything that I choose to communicate in front of others is stuff I’ve either processed and dealt with or it’s waste. Nothing that I am unable to understand in my life and nothing that I feel is deeply personal and important to me is ever paraded out with my body. I have things that I would never share with the general public, but things that I share willingly inside music is stuff that I no longer need and no longer neurose over. All the stuff on the record is stuff that I’ve finally confronted during the process of making music, so it’s deeply emotional but it’s no longer painful.” On Version, you’re voice sounds more stylish, more mature than on Garbage.

“Again I think it’s probably I’m more confident. When I first joined Garbage I had never really sung, and I’d certainly never sung around people who believed in me, who thought I had a lovely voice, ever. So, all of a sudden I was exercising a muscle, I was developing confidence, and I had people who made me feel good about my voice, and it allowed me to push it a little more. I think there’s more of my natural voice on this record. Again, I think subconsciously I was trying to please the boys in the band all the time, last time round. I think I had some twisted idea of what they wanted from me, and I tried to fit into that mould.”

Did you come out of that first album angry? “I’ve come out of my whole life feeling angry. I think it’s probably a chemical thing, I think some people have it and some people don’t, and there is absolutely no reason why I have it. I have anger that I don’t know what to do with, I feel angry towards things and people, irrationally, it’s just there. I like my anger, as a magazine once said, ‘my irritability keeps me alive and kicking.’ I have used it to my benefit but nevertheless I think it’s ugly. I think loads of people have it but just don’t admit it, people think it’s a dreadful thing to talk about one’s anger, to me it’s something very much part of my life and I don’t see why I can’t just be honest and say to people that I acted a particular way because I was furious about something but I’m not quite sure what it was.”

It’s better it surfaces day by day, instead of after a few drinks.

“Yes, I never change when I’m drunk, I’m always the same, whereas in my life I have met so many people who are so sweet and nice, and then that horrible drunk comes out. That to me is a disease, I’m not going to let my anger eat me.”

You swear you’ve no idea where it comes from?

“Absolutely none, I swear to god it’s chemical, I’m convinced it’s chemical, I’ve got no reason to be angry but I guarantee you it’s there.” Has turning 30 had any significant impact on your life? “I did not enjoy the day, it was horrible [laughter]. But I am happier now as an adult than I was when I was 17 years old. I learn more about myself and therefore I learn to be able to reach a certain level of happiness that I was never able to do, so I like getting older. I don’t like looking at my body deteriorate and my face deteriorate, I would be a liar to say otherwise, but I think the pros have definitely outweighed the cons for me. I have found a certain peace and it’s such a relief. I get better with age. All of a sudden in my life, I’m creative, I wrote songs on this record, I wrote all of the words on this record, and that makes me happy in a way that nothing else has been able to do in my life. It’s

been like an ointment on my life and that has been amazing.” Do you view this new album as some sort of a beginning for yourself personally? “I think I’ve got a long way to go, but I feel I’ve unblocked the fear of failing, now I’m

trying.”

What will dictate how long you continue to do music and be in a band?

“I think society’s view of age will dictate how long I’m able to do this. For me to actually think that I am unaffected by the way society views women and age would be ludicrous.”

I noticed you’ve got a ‘Women in Rock’ type interview to do tomorrow. How do you feel about that angle? “I don’t like it but I’m not going to shy away from it because I think it’s important that women continue on mass to fight for equality. But, the fact that it’s still an issue and the fact that we’re still grouped together as one is proof enough that we’ve a long way to go. We have no choice really, it’s either all together or not at all. So, we take it all together in the vain hope that it will push the doors wider and wider until a massive influx of female artists flood through, and there’s as many females out there as there are men.”

For a while now, Garbage has ceased to be Butch Vig’s band, Shirley Manson has been the focus.

“I can remember when we first went into Geffen Records to talk with our press officer about the launch of our first record. This wonderfully earnest young man who I love to pieces was trying to explain to me that he would try and get me some press attention, but I mustn’t take it personally if he couldn’t get it, and that obviously people would focus on Butch and blah, blah, blah. And for some reason inside my head I remember thinking, TH get press attention,’ because I’m much more vocal than the other three. I knew that if we sat down in an interview, the person that would do the talking would be me, so it never really worried me. If they were looking for the boys to be loudmouthed they were barking up the wrong tree. Now, they’re battling to try and encourage the press to want to speak to other members of the band. The boys don’t give two flying fucks, I think they’re relieved that the onus of attention has been removed from their shoulders to a certain degree. And it doesn’t bother me. I am the front person of this band, when people come to see our shows, I am the first in line, I’m the closest thing they’ve got to getting near us as a band, so I think it’s obvious that people are going to see me as the communicator of the band. And I’m talkative, I should probably button my mouth more but I can’t.”

Later in the evening, Manson is guest of honour at a low key ‘meet-and-greet’ do at a chic bar in St Kilda. Present are the staff of Mushroom Records, and Sony Music, Mushroom’s Australian distributors. Manson, clad in Diesel overalls and nursing a ‘Garbage Slushy’ (vodka, cranberry

and crushed ice), greets complete strangers as though they’re old friends, yet there’s nothing false about her behaviour. For and hour and a half she chats about Version 2.0, Sting’s worst videos, and her worship of Chrissie Hynde, before revealing she has only recently paid off

the debts of her first band, Goodbye Mr Mackenzie. Just after nine, Manson decides to go back to the Hilton. “I want to phone my husband,” she says. Two more days of Melbourne based promo are on the agenda, then Manson travels to Sydney, before jetting off to the Asian region. A hectic lifestyle it undoubtedly is, but it’s all part of Garbage’s master plan to hold onto their ‘artistic freedom’ and ‘incredible luxury’, says Manson. “As a band we feel very lucky to have the opportunity of having an audience for our second record, that’s a massive luxury that a tiny percentage of band’s enjoy, so for us to hiss and moan about it would be just ludicrous. We are very grateful that we are in this position, and we’re also aware that we have to be careful in how we view the world because it’s very easy for us to sit in America, make a record and just pander to the Americans. Unlike a lot of bands we’ve had global success, which is really quite unusual, we haven’t sold a lot of records in one place, it’s all been spread out, and with that comes a huge responsibility to try and cater to all the different territories around the globe. Garbage, as a band, we’re trying to have an international approach and be a little

more broadminded about our world.”

John Russell